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Actually, ULA lost the Sparkie (3CS-1) and Ralphie (3CS-2) satellites on the first flight of the Delta IV Heavy. The strap-ons had an erroneous fuel indication and dropped off too early. This resulted in these two satellites being released too early, failing to achieve orbit.

Stating that ULA has had zero launch failures versus SpaceX is an EXTREMELY misleading statement. The creation of ULA in 2006 by merging Boeing IDS and LM SS allowed ULA to begin launching immediately with two mature launch vehicles, namely the Delta IV and Atlas V. Take a look at the early stages of either of those vehicles and you will see the same teething process that SpaceX has endured with the Falcon.

Space-X is a newcomer in the industry & does not have the benefit of being able to have all their mistakes happen decades ago. Haste is only an issue when it causes problems due to haste and Space-X has yet to repeat a mistake.

CRS-1: One in-flight engine failure (out of nine). Primary mission successful but secondary mission failed. Any other launcher would have lost both payloads.

Amos-6: Use of supercooled propellants and a new carburant loading protocol reveals a new failure mode in COPVs. Total loss _not_ covered by launch insurance. Source identified, previous protocols that have never caused an incident reinstated and revisions implemented into F9 Block 5 COPVs that will be launching by the end of the year.

F9 has almost doubled it's payload between V1.0 & Block 5, successfully re-used the first stage and will soon be launching Falcon Heavy while ULA has... not progressed at all. Space-X's "haste" is what brought it to the point that ULA VPs can no longer hide that they are uncompetitive and soon to be irrelevant in this market.

Mark, we all know that you dislike any progress from back in the day when you were an active contributor to society and at your age see little point in investing in the future but the rest of us want to move on and see mankind get beyond the rare iridium-plated missions to low orbit that you are comfortable with.

The Orbcomm-OG2 was a test satellite secondary payload which stayed up long enough to get the needed data.

The Dragon main payload got to ISS, early, because Falcon 9's engine-out capability pulled through after a fuel dome failed in one Merlin 1C engine. Merlin 1D isn't susceptible to that failure, and SpaceX has flown >300 M1D's with no failures.

CRS-7 was a supplier issue.

AMOS-6 was a never before seen formation of solid oxygen in a helium COPV carbon overwrap. Now fixed, tested and flying. Future methane fueled vehicles will use autogenous pressurization, not helium.

But let's not ignore the RD-180 mix ratio control valve failure which nearly cost Atlas V it's 0 losses number; stopped 5-6 seconds before the scheduled MECO. If it weren't for Centaur over performing the Cygnus OA-6 launch to ISS would have failed.

Every SpaceX launch underlines the impact of lower costs, and the future of reusability which has not reached its full cost savings potential. The fast pace of launches is a highly significant factor in economies of scale which will produce lower cost satellites, and insurance rates. Given the volatility of rocket science it can be expected that there will continue to be failures, but the reduction in costs by at least an order of magnitude will support the demand for cheap and accessible launch systems.

They have successfully landed first stages for GTO launches before but they were considerably lighter than this satellite. From what I've read, the upcoming Block 5 version will be able to land even with payloads this heavy.

Must be tough watching a reusable rocket that can normally be used 10+ times be thrown away on one launch for the SpaceX team ! Falcon 9 Heavy that should be up and running soon should eliminate that waste if all goes well.

Your list of partial failures is highly exaggerated. There was no failure on launch 1 (an unexpected roll on liftoff wasn't a failure and didn't impact the mission). There was no failure on launch 2. On launch 4, one of the first stage engines suffered a loss of pressure and was shut down. The rocket continued on to orbit (unlike other rockets in a similar situation) but delivered the Orbcomm-G2 satellite into an orbit too low for sustained operations. The satellite decayed 4 days later.

I could go on but I think I've made my point. Your list is highly flawed. ULA lost two satellites on the first launch of the Delta IV Heavy. Likewise, in the 2016 launch of Cygnus OA-6, the first stage shut down prematurely and the upper stage had to extend its burn to save the mission. Analysis shows that the Centaur came within a few seconds of running out of propellant and suffering mission failure. On a Delta IV mission, the Centaur upper stage under performed but managed to deliver the GPS satellite to the proper orbit. The Centaur is a very good upper stage but nothing has a perfect track record.

Seriously? You are including failures to land the first stage as partial failures? How many first stage landings has ULA attempted? Also you're including failures of the payload. How about the truth: 32 successes in 34 launches, including 6 launches just in 2017.

If Obama had not killed the Constellation program we would not be spending more (at a slower rate) on SLS for the same hardware excluding the thermal nuclear stages to get us to Mars. The Falcon nine received seed money under the COTS program in 2006 which was before Obama.

"Your list of partial failures is highly exaggerated. There was no failure on launch 1 (an unexpected roll on liftoff wasn't a failure and didn't impact the mission). There was no failure on launch 2."

I believe there were recovery parachute failures on both flights.

And low orbits were already included as total failures by others.

My original supposition excluded experimental flights, or aspects of flights, which I still consider a more valid assessment.

I will stick with the assessment that SpaceX is probably a higher insurance risk than ULA at this time.

Once Space-X has delivered it's payload(s) to their intended orbit(s), the mission is a success, whatever the recovery tests they performed afterward. Every single post-delivery experiment was a success, giving them more and more data to progress towards successful first stage recovery. How do we know that they were a success? Because Space-X can now reliably recover their boosters when not flying expendable missions like the last one.

Space-X's lower launch costs are already low enough that they are less expensive to launch on than ULA even should the insurance premium be higher on F9.

It's fortunate for you that you are not a launch insurer. You'd be running your company into the ground right next to ULA. You don't even have the juicy billion dollars that the USG hands ULA every year just to stay in the launch business.